


Lips as Red as Blood

by HoneyCoconut



Series: The Stars Are Far Apart Too [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bratty Keith (Voltron), Dom Lance (Voltron), Explicit Consent, Galra Keith (Voltron), Human Lance (Voltron), Implied Sexual Content, Kinda, Knifeplay, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Sexual Content, Sub Keith (Voltron), because consent is sexy, implied pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyCoconut/pseuds/HoneyCoconut
Summary: Like being hit with the realisation, Lance gets it.Keith likes the pain.He meets Keith’s eyes; the violet in them is hidden by the hair falling in Keith’s eyes, and the dim light, and by how large Keith’s pupils have become.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so self indulgent, and I don't really have an excuse for this, but anyways
> 
> (Also there are exactly two people I know in real life who know of this account: I don't think I'll be able to ever look you in the eyes again if you read this, just so you know)

It’s a long day. Lance doesn’t mind, of course, but by the end of it, he’s quite exhausted. 

They rescued two planets, and Keith managed to get himself hurt again- which only added to Lance’s nerves being stressed.

Shiro and Allura made the rest of the paladins help with cleanup while Keith was allowed to return to his room, but Lance knows that Keith won’t be in his own, but rather Lance’s room.

 

He looks forward to going back to their room and to cuddling the life - and hopefully the recklessness - out of Keith.

Shiro plays into his hands by allowing the paladins to leave before cleanup is fully finished, with the words, “Go, rest, we’ll continue tomorrow when you guys don’t look like you're half dead.”

 

Pidge leaves without a word, looking like she could fall asleep standing, but they all know her; she’ll probably be awake, tinkering on who-knows-what until the sun rises unless someone forces her to go to bed.

Lance is just about to volunteer, seeing as it would have been Keith’s turn to make Pidge go to bed, but Hunk’s faster than he is, going after her, waving off Lance and Shiro, who both want to offer help.

 

So, looking forward to Keith - probably curled up on their bed, napping - Lance showers and changes out of his armour, humming to himself as he makes his way back to his room. Their room.

 

The lights are on the lowest setting when Lance enters his room.

 

And- to be quite honest with himself, Lance did not expect the scene that awaits him.

 

Keith’s sitting on his bed, his blade pressed to his lower arm. He looks up and freezes when he hears the door open. At first, Lance thinks that Keith’s hurting himself. But as he looks at Keith with furrowed brows, his eyes are - involuntarily, of course - drawn to between Keith’s legs and he can’t help but notice that Keith’s hard.

 

Like being hit with the realisation, Lance gets it.

 

Keith _likes_ the pain.

 

He meets Keith’s eyes; the violet in them is hidden by the hair falling in Keith’s eyes, and the dim light, and by how large Keith’s pupils have become.

 

Keith’s eyes seem black; black like the boxers he’s wearing, the only piece of clothing that’s keeping him covered.

 

His eyes are almost as dark as a black hole.

 

Keith might not be a black hole, but the pull that he’s having on Lance is very, very real.

 

And in the low light, Keith is a portrait of sin in black and white.

 

When Lance steps into the room wordlessly and lets the door slide shut, Keith sets the knife aside and licks over where beautiful red blood has beaded up on his pale skin, as white as the purest lilies can only hope to be.

 

Even if pure doesn’t fit the profile, not when it comes to Keith.

 

Lance walks over to the bed slowly, letting the tension build between them as Keith eyes Lance nervously, not quite sure what to make of his silence.

 

When Lance finally speaks, he’s standing in front of the bed, looking down at Keith with a raised eyebrow.

 

“You didn’t get any blood on the sheets, did you, my Darling?”

 

Keith shakes his head.

 

Lance raises the second eyebrow too.

 

“No, I didn’t...get any blood on the sheets”, Keith replies obediently, his eyes flickering down while his cheeks flush, a dark colour that isn’t quite red.

 

Lance chuckles and reaches out. He tangles his hands in the spilt ink that is Keith’s hair.

 

“Good boy”, he hums, smirking as Keith bites his lower lip to quieten the whine he would’ve made otherwise.

 

“I thought you’d be gone for longer”, Keith says after a few seconds of silence, avoiding Lance’s eyes. The solution to that is simple. Lance tightens his hold on Keith’s hair and forces his head up. Keith might be enough of a brat to keep looking away from Lance, who’s staring down at him expectantly, but he also wants Lance to give him a reply, so Lance doesn’t have to wait long until Keith reluctantly meets his eyes.

 

“Is that why I caught you cutting yourself?”, Lance asks, and Keith grimaces.

 

“When you say it like that, it sounds like I’m harming myself.”

 

“You _are_ harming yourself.”

 

“But not like- _like that_!”, Keith protests, looking up at Lance with wide, insisting eyes. Beautiful eyes, in Lance’s opinion.

 

“I know, Darling. You avoided my question though: is the only reason I caught you doing this because you thought I’d be gone for longer?”, he asks, frowning when Keith looks away, ashamed. He lets go of Keith’s hair and sits down next to Keith, taking Keith’s hand to press a gentle kiss to his knuckles. “Hey, you can talk to me- don’t be embarrassed, it’s okay.”

 

Keith nods slowly, his cheeks glowing red, flushed enough that Lance thinks he might just feel the warmth of Keith’s blood radiating off Keith’s face if he leaned a bit closer. Lance takes it as an answer, and gives Keith a reassuring smile even if Keith isn’t looking at him, staring at his own feet determinedly.

 

Lance takes it as a win that Keith’s even letting him hold his hand right now.

 

“It’s okay”, Lance says again, because he thinks Keith needs to hear this, “I promise, I’m not weirded out.”

 

Those words shift something in Keith’s demeanour, like someone hung heavy ornaments onto Keith’s thoughts.

But it’s not a good thing.

 

Keith keeps avoiding his eyes, letting his hair fall between them. “Why not?”, he asks. He sounds like his throat is burning. “Why-why aren’t you weirded out- why aren’t you pushing me away?” The hand that Lance is holding is now trembling slightly. “It’s-this whole thing, it’s disgusting, and weird, and-“

 

“Stop”, Lance interrupts Keith, frowning, “why do you think I should be weirded out?” He takes Keith’s second hand too, frowning when Keith resolutely still won’t look at him.

 

“Because-because liking that sort of thing is _wrong,_ and I shouldn’t like it, I shouldn’t be doing it-“

 

Keith sounds like he’s repeating words he heard from someone else once, and Lance feels, for the first time, the urge to carve the heart from someone’s chest.

 

Lance pulls Keith close and holds him against his chest, letting out a soothing rumble when Keith’s hands tighten in his shirt.

 

“It’s not weird”, he says confidently, allowing no objections from Keith, “it’s perfectly alright. It’s uncommon, but that’s all there is to it.”

 

Keith lets out a small, protesting noise, as if he’s about disagree, but Lance won’t have that, so he keeps talking.

 

“If you want, I can do it with you sometime.”

 

That shuts Keith up effectively- for a few seconds at least.

 

Keith finally meets Lance’s eyes again, small tears caught at his dark lashes.

 

“Really?”, he whispers, still clinging to Lance’s shirt and looking up at him like he hung the stars.

 

Lance didn’t hang them, but he’d gladly take them from the sky and give them to Keith if it made him happy.

 

He nods.

 

“Of course I would”, Lance promises, pushing Keith’s hair out of his face, “I’d like to try new things with you.” He presses a kiss to Keith’s cheek.

 

Keith loosens one hand from Lance’s shirt to wipe at his eyes, even though his tears didn’t spill over.

 

“When?”, he asks, impatient as usual. And quite obviously hoping that Lance will tell him that they’ll do it that very moment.

 

Lance chuckles, pressing another sweet kiss to Keith’s cheek when he eyes him in the way Lance knows by now; it’s the way Keith looks at him when he wants to try something new but is unsure if he’s allowed to.

 

Poor little darling.

 

So reliant on Lance’s guidance that he’s afraid of even suggesting the slightest change of direction.

 

And now, there’s the added bonus of Keith being genuinely insecure about this particular desire of his.

 

“You’ve got to wait a while until we’ll do it”, Lance tells Keith, ignoring Keith’s cute little pout. He holds onto Keith’s lower arm, his thumb pressing into the skin close to the cuts. The resulting gasp from Keith is quiet but sweet and so, so tempting. Lance smirks and does it again; Keith whimpers and lets his head fall against Lance’s shoulder. “I want to wait until those are fully healed”, he decides, eyeing the two thin red cuts along Keith’s arm; they’re not deep enough for there to be any danger of Keith bleeding too much. Keith clearly knows what he’s doing.

 

“But-“

“No buts, Keith.”

 

Predictably, Keith pouts, but Lance hasn’t let that sway him since the first few times.

 

Keith has a few more weapons in his arsenal though.

 

“Please, my love”, Keith begs now, and- oh, Lance is a weak man. Keith begging just is something that Lance finds difficult to resist, especially when he resorts to using pet names.

 

“My Darling...”, he starts, trying to be reasonable, but then he feels Keith’s fingers sliding down until they’re tracing the waistband of Lance’s pants. “Come on now, behave.” It’s a last effort to stop himself from giving in, but unfortunately for Lance, Keith knows so.

 

Keith tucks his fingers into the belt loops; his pale and thin but calloused fingers fit in snugly alongside Lance’s leather belt, and Keith tugs teasingly.

 

“Please”, he says again, smirking at Lance, his teeth shining white in the low light, “please- I’ll let you fuck me after. You know how I get when I’m all overwhelmed and sated, don’t you? Didn’t you say that you liked fucking me then because my reactions to your touches are stronger and- how did you word it? Didn’t you say that you could ‘play me like a harp’?”

 

Keith giggles.

 

“How good are you at playing the harp, I wonder?”

 

Lance growls and pulls Keith’s fingers away from his pants.

 

“Don’t think you’ve got the upper hand here, boy”, he drawls, pushing Keith onto his back and crawling on top of him, pinning Keith’s wrists down next to his head.

 

Keith’s grin is a pleased one, and Lance leans down to kiss it off his face.

 

When Keith moans into Lance’s mouth, Lance instinctively lowers his body onto Keith’s, pressing their hips together, which elicits a louder moan from Keith. Lance can’t help but smirk into the kiss when Keith arches up, his arms trying to pull free; he tightens his grip on Keith’s wrists and presses his body down until Keith’s unable to move away even an inch off the mattress.

 

His veins sing with the thrill of having Keith caught underneath him.

 

“Lance, please”, Keith gasps once Lance pulls away so they can catch their breath, “can you-can you- _you know_.” Maybe it’s the insistent way Keith says it, like he’ll starve if he isn’t given what he wants, or maybe it’s because Keith can’t even say what he wants, but Lance is suddenly reminded of how bad an idea this is.

They need to think this through properly.

They need to talk about what each of them wants from all this, and what their limits are.

 

Because Lance isn’t going to start cutting Keith without having talked about it first, even if it would bring Keith pleasure.

 

He pulls back, and he hates himself for it, hates himself because it makes Keith look up at him with this wounded look in his eyes that reminds Lance of why he sometimes thinks of Keith as an angel fallen into more pain than he’d ever deserve.

 

If he could sell his lungs to make sure Keith would be happy for the rest of his life, he would, because Keith’s happiness is all he needs to breathe freely.

 

“Keith, we can’t do it now-“

“But Lance, please, I promise, nothing’s going to happen. Everything will be perfectly alright, just as always.”

 

Lance sighs and sits back, pulling Keith up with him.

 

“Look, we haven’t talked about this properly.”

“We don’t need to. We’ll deal with any problems once they’re there.”

“Keith, no”, Lance says gently, reaching out to take Keith’s hands, pretending that everything is alright when Keith pulls his hands back and crosses his arms.

 

Only now does it occur to Lance that his room is just a bit too cold to be wearing nothing but boxers.

 

“C’mon, you should put on something warm, and then we can talk about this”, he offers, hoping that Keith will meet him in the middle on this one.

 

And Keith does.

 

Lance waits on the bed while Keith gets up to put on a shirt and pants, sulking only slightly as he does so. It’s an improvement to what it used to be, Lance thinks as he watches fondly.

 

When Keith is done, Lance holds out his arms, and with an annoyed grumble of which Lance knows it’s only half real, Keith lets Lance pull him close so they’re lying pressed against each other, entwined on Lance’s bed.

 

“How do you feel?”, Lance asks, believing this to be an appropriate question to start their conversation with. Keith raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.

“A bit worn out”, he replies, looking at Lance’s chest, his shirt seemingly more interesting than anything else.

Lance stays silent as Keith reaches up to pull on a few loose threads on his shirt, tucking a strand of hair behind Keith’s ear in return.

 

“We can do it- the cutting, if you really want”, Lance says quietly, watching Keith. Keith looks up at him, trusting and more vulnerable than Lance usually gets the chance to see. “But we really should wait, this isn’t something we should just do. This is your wellbeing we’re talking about. We can’t just wing it.”

“I know...”, Keith mumbles, pulling a thread off Lance’s shirt, “I just...I just want to. I _really_ want to.”

 

Lance knows he can’t give in now, but he almost does.

But if he gives in, they won’t talk, and they won’t establish boundaries, and that is something he refuses to allow.

 

Trust and consent are the very essence of their relationship, and even if Keith is tempted to take shortcuts sometimes, such as now, Lance hasn’t allowed that to happen so far.

 

“We should sleep”, Lance says, because if he starts talking about Keith and the cutting again, they’ll start discussing it, and if they do that, they’ll stay awake until three in the morning, with Keith trying to coax him into giving in, and Lance struggling not to give in.

Keith grunts into Lance’s chest, burying his face there.

Lance thinks he can hear Keith mutter something along the lines of “Goodnight”, but he’s not sure.

“Sleep well, my darling”, Lance whispers, turning the lights off, and holding Keith as close as he’ll allow.


	2. Chapter 2

“Come  _on_ , Lance”, Keith demands, and Lance snorts at the impatient expression on Keith’s face.

“Patience, my Darling.” Lance presses his thumb into one of the knots in Keith’s shoulder, hungrily drinking up Keith’s surprised gasp at the sudden pressure on his muscles. He continues massaging Keith, determined to work all the tense spots away; he wants Keith to be relaxed and pliant for what’s to follow.

 

“Lance”, Keith says again, his voice tapering off into a soft whine when Lance presses his fingers into his skin harder. Somewhere between agitated and content, Keith lets his head fall down onto the pillow, black, silky hair spreading around his face in a spider’s web. He looks gorgeous.

But that’s nothing new.

 

Lance hums and moves his hands down slowly, kneading and massaging at Keith’s back. Unlike Keith, he’s not in a hurry. He’s more than comfortable watching the lazy line of Keith’s pale body sprawled across the sheets.

 

“C’mon, please”, Keith mumbles into the pillow, and Lance can’t help but smile.

Keith is so open and vulnerable once he lets his walls down, and if Lance could put his current feeling of satisfaction and thrill in a bottle, it would be classified as a drug. No one can blame him for chasing Keith as much as he does, not when Keith is falling apart in his presence like a snowdrop in too-sudden spring heat.

Only to bloom again; to tempt Lance to _ruin_ him again.

 

“What did I just tell you?”, Lance asks, slowing his hands, grinning when Keith shoots him a look of pure betrayal.

“I  _have_ been patient”, Keith says, turning his head as far as it will go so he can look at Lance over his shoulder, huffing in frustration, “I’ve waited two weeks- the cuts on my arm are healed now!”

Lance leans down to press a kiss to Keith’s shoulder blade. “You make a convincing case, Darling”, he says, “but I want you to be completely relaxed before we continue.”

Keith rolls his eyes – at least Lance thinks he does, Keith’s turned his face into the pillow, hiding his face, but he’s found that it’s easy to read Keith once he got past the first fifty-three walls around Keith’s heart.

 

Keith gives in, sinking into the mattress, his limbs heavier than they actually are.

Luckily for him, once he caves, it’s easy for his muscles to loosen under Lance’s touch, under firm fingers and warm hands, hands strong enough to choke, hands nimble enough to kill, hands always gentle unless Keith begs for rough.

 

When Lance pulls his hands back to pick the knife up off the nightstand where it’s been waiting, clean and sharp and lethal, Keith murmurs into the pillows, excited.

 

And it might have been Keith’s idea, but now, bent over Keith, holding his knife, Lance’s blood soars and burns and sings with a chorus that urges Lance to go on, to finally cut Keith, to mark the blank space of Keith’s back with something that Keith only wants if it comes from Lance.

It’s moments like those when Lance understands the term ‘being drunk with power’ because how could he not be, when Keith has his back offered to him, showing trust even if he doesn’t express it verbally, not even asking Lance to be careful, but then again, Keith’s asking Lance to carve lines into his back, so perhaps Lance should be more surprised that Keith didn’t even tell Lanced where to cut, leaving him to choose instead.

So no, he can’t be faulted when his blood burns hot enough to leave Lance nearly dizzy and addicted to Keith’s body under him.

 

He plants himself firmly on Keith’s naked butt, pinning him down so the chances of him moving and accidentally ruining Lance’s cuts later. He leans down, kisses his way across Keith’s shoulder blades, letting him know what path the knife will take, and then, because Keith oozes desire and lust from every pore, pulling Lance unbearably, wonderfully close, he moves to Keith’s neck; he won’t cut there, but he plans to leave marks anyways, kissing and sucking and biting, Keith gasping and whimpering already.

 

“You alright, my Darling?”, Lance murmurs, and Keith nods eagerly, hurriedly, and Lance doesn’t try to contain his victorious grin. He knows he’s the only person Keith would let do this to him, and he delights in that knowledge.

“Stay still”, he orders, letting his voice dip low to where it surrounds Keith’s limbs like dark honey, making him sweet and happy to obey Lance’s commands. “I want the cuts to look pretty”, he purrs, “don’t you too?”

Keith nods again, his beautiful, night-spun hair shaking, almost floating with the motion, before Keith remembers that he shouldn’t be moving and stops his nodding. Instead, he whispers, “Yes, yes, _yes_ ,” and sounds sweet and desperate and strung high with want.

 

Lance chuckles, and, ever so carefully, lays the tips of the knife against Keith’s soft, white skin.

 

Keith lies perfectly still under him, eager to please now that he’s less than a hair’s breadth from getting what he wants, thrumming with anticipation in a way Lance hasn’t ever seen before.

 

The first cut is as long as Lance’s palm, beading up with bright red, hot, blood immediately. Keith moans, pained, a sound Lance’s never heard before.

He stops, concerned, but then Keith whines, “please,” and that’s something Lance’s heard before, something he’s been conditioned to love, been conditioned to feel his lust spike higher and higher.

The second cut, too, is as long as Lance’s palm, and a finger’s width lower than the other one. Keith’s moan, bursting with pain and pleasure and delight, worms its way into the cracks of Lance’s being, taking root and growing into something Lance can’t identify but will cherish anyways.

 

He didn’t expect to, but he starts to delight in the sensation of holding Keith down, of cutting fluid red lines into Keith.

 

Lance keeps drawing the knife over the no longer blank canvas of Keith’s body, each pretty cut precise, and carefully placed on Keith’s shoulder blade, each cut an addition to the tally in Keith’s skin, counting how often Keith’s desperation was sated yet heightened, counting how often Lance felt electrified anew from the liquid aphrodisiac that drips from Keith’s parted lips in the form of sound.

 

When Lance notices his vision blurring and his mind fogging from mounting, dizzying desire, he sets the knife back on the nightstand, unwilling to seriously hurt Keith because he’s no longer thinking clearly.

 

Keith whines, sharp and needy, his hands tightening around the still-pristine sheets, and as an apology for ending this – for today, at least – Lance leans down, pressing his weight on Keith’s hips and lower back, bringing his face down to lick the blood from the nine cuts; Keith lets out a startled gasp, but then he’s moaning again, each little sound pitched higher than the last, each little gasp dragging sparks of arousal through Lance’s whole body, making him shiver with the force of it.

 

Lance can’t resist pressing his tongue against the cuts, drawing louder cries from Keith, drawing more blood to the surface, licking it away, starving for the taste of Keith; he’d never have expected it, but drinking what little of Keith’s blood that he can get is much closer to getting high of Keith’s taste than biting at his skin had ever been.

 

He adores it.

 

Keith whimpers, biting at the pillows and clawing at the sheets as he writhes under Lance’s firm hold on his very being.

 

Once the cuts on Keith’s shoulder blades coagulate and Lance finishes licking up the blood like a man starved, Lance reaches for the disinfectant on the nightstand, even though Keith probably won’t need it, with his immune system being better than a human’s.

Lance’s not taking any chances though.

He sprays it on and puts it back, getting off Keith so both of them can stretch their limbs from where they’re locked tight into the grips of too much unspent energy, pent up in their muscles.

 

Keith rolls onto his side with a whimper, already putting pressure on the cuts, and Lance lets out an alarmed murmur; Keith pulls him down to lie next to him, and Lance can’t help himself; he keeps kissing and biting at Keith’s neck, leaving behind dark purple marks that creep up Keith’s throat, peppered with red indents from Lance’s teeth.

 

It looks beautiful, even if it pales in comparison to the sounds Keith makes.

He’s whining and squirming, pulling away and pressing closer at the same time, overwhelmed but _wanting_.

 

At last, Lance pulls back, eyeing what he’s left of himself on Keith, shades of blue among the purple, and he’s curious to see how the colours will change over the next few days.

 

“How do you feel, my Darling?”, Lance asks, wrapping his arms around Keith; he’s a bit concerned about how much Keith’s body has cooled down, so he pulls the blankets up to Keith’s waist.

 

“M’fine”, Keith slurs, voice hoarse from use, his eyes hazy and dark with lust. He leans over and presses small kisses to Lance’s jawline.

“Thank you”, Keith continues, smiling against Lance’s neck lazily, “I loved it.”

 

“Glad you liked it.” Lance smirks, tangles his hand in Keith’s soft hair, and pulls Keith’s head away slowly but firmly, revelling in Keith’s surprised squeak. “But you say it like it’s over.”  
He chuckles, and lightly rubs his thumb over Keith’s plush bottom lip. Though still dark, Keith’s eyes are now sharp, trained on Lance’s every move.

 

“We’ve still got the whole night, don’t we?”, Lance grins, the expression mirrored by Keith, who pulls free of Lance’s hold, wraps his arms around Lance’s neck, and kisses him, hungry for everything that Lance will let him have.

 

They make sure to use the time they have. 


End file.
